Jeffrey D. Sachs's Blog, page 51

Live Chat 12pm Feb 5: ‘The Age of Sustainable Development’

Keystone: The Pipeline to Disaster

The new State Department Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone Pipeline does three things. First, it signals a greater likelihood that the pipeline project will be approved later this year by the administration. Second, it vividly illustrates the depth of confusion of US climate change policy. Third, it self-portrays the US Government as a helpless bystander to [...]

Development, Structure, and Transformation: Some Evidence on Comparative Economic Growth

Download full paper here: Development Structure and Transformation McCord and Sachs NBER 73485-w19512 ABSTRACT: We suggest that the geographical patterns of income differences across the world have deep underpinnings. We emphasize that economic development is a complex process driven by economic, political, social, and biophysical forces. Some economists have argued that the patterns reflect mainly the historical footprint of [...]

Europe still sets the standard for a low-carbon future

Three cheers for the new EU energy policy for 2030. While last week’s announcement was criticised by some observers as a retreat on clean energy (and praised by some businesses for the same alleged reason), it was no retreat at all. The EU maintains its global leadership in pointing the way out of the climate-energy [...]

The challenge of deep decarbonisation

Energy lies at the heart of the world’s sustainability challenge. On the one hand, abundant, accessible, low-cost energy is vital for economic prosperity. On the other hand, the world’s pattern of energy use, based on fossil fuels, threatens massive future climate change with devastating potential consequences. The greatest sustainability challenge, therefore, is to meet the [...]

Gov. Cuomo and Raising Taxes on the Rich

I applaud Governor Cuomo for recognizing the critical importance of universal pre-K and after-school programs for educational opportunity. He is right: we need the programs in NYC and statewide. But the statewide money he is proposing doesn’t even meet the needs of New York City alone, much less the whole state. Therefore it’s obvious that [...]

The Case for Aid

I have long believed in foreign aid as one tool of economic development. This is not an easy position to maintain, especially in the United States, where public misunderstanding, politics, and ideology all tend to keep aid an object of contempt for many people. Yet the recent evidence shows that development aid, when properly designed [...]

CNN: Fighting Extreme Poverty

Our Dangerous Budget and What to Do About It

The December budget deal, worked out between Representative Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray, has been widely greeted with relief. Since the first days of the Obama Administration in 2009, Washington has been in a pitched battle over the budget, with endless fights over stimulus packages, temporary tax cuts, spending limits and sequestration, fiscal cliffs, [...]

The Age of Sustainable Development

NEW YORK – A half-century ago, John F. Kennedy observed that, “man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” Those words speak to us today with special urgency. Our generation can indeed end the ancient scourge of extreme poverty. Yet it can [...]